Drew Hutton, Green historian and activist, will launch Sir Joseph Banks and the Question of Hemp by Dr John Jiggens at Avid Reader, Boundary Street, West End, on Tuesday April 24 at 6pm.… Go to Article
Category: History
Queensland: a state of mind
[Editor’s Note: After the once-in-a-generation result in the 2012 Queensland state elections, it is timely to reprint Queensland: a state of mind by Humphrey McQueen.… Go to Article
Union Action to Save the Reef now Illegal
In light of the current alarm about dredging and dumping in the Reef, it is worth recalling how it was saved by union action which is now illegal under Fair Work Australia.… Go to Article
Whose side are you on?
The mundane decline of labour history
by Humphrey McQueen
Fifty-one years ago, a grouping of communists and ex-communists in Canberra set up a Society for the Study of Labour History and prepared a journal, Labour History.… Go to Article
We Built This Country – Builders’ Labourers and their Unions
Humphrey McQueen read this inspiring poem below at the launch of the book:
“Our liberties had not been won by mining magnates or stock-exchange jobbers, but by genuine men of the working-class movement who had died on the gallows and rotted in dungeons and were buried in nameless graves.… Go to Article
Trifecta at 608 Brunswick Street
‘608 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley’
— a story about a share house in Brisbane
in the late 1970s and early 1980s
by Ian Curr
"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke, "There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.… Go to Article
Vale Bob Gould
Version in the Marxist Archive (Andy Blunden)
In 1991 Bob Gould sold me his last copy of Ernie Lane’s Dawn to Dusk – Reminiscences of a Rebel.… Go to Article
Questionnaire on political issues in Australia
Multi-guess questions on political issues.
The main issues covered in this questionnaire are the Environment, the Economy, and Social Justice.… Go to Article
Review of Publishing Policy at Workers BushTelegraph
This is a request for advice from readers and contributors.
Since adopting a publising policy last November, WBT has attracted a greater number and variety of comments.… Go to Article
1967/1977 street marches in Queensland — reasons for revolt?
… Go to Article“Here is a historically important film, recently rediscovered, that few people will ever have seen, and that commemorates an event that a lot of you will remember.
Israel — a fruitless lie
Jaffa oranges are the world-wide variety of citrus grown in many countries. Its origin however wsa in the Jaffa precinct of historic Palestine.… Go to Article
Eureka 2010: Stations of the Southern Cross
Stations of the Southern Cross – 156th anniversary of the Eureka Rebellion
On one level the Eureka stockade was a dispute over mining licences at Ballarat gold diggings in 1854.… Go to Article
Rejection of the Communist Party Dissolution Act at the Referendum on 22 September 1951
Rejection of the Communist Party Dissolution Act at the Referendum on 22 September 1951
Following an informal discussion in Brisbane on Sunday 31 October, I offered to provide some background materials for activities around the 60th anniversary of the victory.… Go to Article
Among the Unions: ALP affiliation – an affliction?
The wiles of Labour politicians – the futility of fearful and reactionary Labour leaders have been revealed in this record, and the lessons I and others so bitterly learned should preclude any further waste of time and enthusiasm in vainly endeavouring to make figs blossom and fruit on barren trees.… Go to Article
Queensland Rail — in the Public Debt
Even England, the home of the 1980s Thatcherite ideas on public policy has come to realise the folly of many of those policies.… Go to Article
The town that was murdered
Introduction
The capitalists are murdering towns, suburbs, farms, rivers and seas. They are killing people in wars and through environmental destruction.… Go to Article
The Best Hated Man in Australia
‘In life, as in the manner of death, Brookfield made personal sacrifice the measure of his political commitment. Morally and physically fearless, his probity withstood parliament.
… Go to ArticlePalm Island — on the inside and out
Book Launch of Joanne Watson’s ‘Palm Island through a long lens’
Joanne Watson’s ‘Palm Island through a long lens’
“My people don’t need no introduction, we are the people you label with white dysfunction, our beauty, our pride you just don’t mention, I gotta ask, people, what’s your intention?”… Go to Article
What does the Left Want?
Every year my friends gather on New Years eve and try to predict what will happen in the coming year.
We place these predictions in a book and then in the following new year’s eve we read them to compare prediction with what actually happened.… Go to Article
A ‘two-state solution’ to the Israel-Palestine conflict?
The following is a report of an ALP/Union Forum titled A two state solution to the Israel Palestine conflict held at Qld parliament on Remembrance Day, 11th November 2009.… Go to Article
Who will save Yungaba — ‘the land of the sun’?
by Ian Curr
“Job and me and Jesus sittin’
Underneath the Indooroopilly bridge
Watchin’ that blazin’ sun go down
Behind the tall tree’d mountain ridge
The land’s our heritage and spirit
Here the rightful culture’s Black
and we sittin’ here just wonderin’
When we get the land back”
— Kev Carmody ‘Thou shalt not steal’
If you walk underneath the Storey bridge you can see what has happened.… Go to Article
Australia’s ‘Construction Stasi’
by Humphrey McQueen
Dare Australia’s Labor government gaol Adelaide builders’ labourer, Ark Tribe?
Tribe’s crime is that he refuses to attend a secret hearing of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).… Go to Article
Book Review: The Lemon Tree
The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan is narrative non-fiction, meaning it tells a personal narrative of the people affected by the occupation of Palestine and does it in the context of the history of this unresolved conflict.… Go to Article
Darwin, Lincoln and the survival of the slave-masters
By Humphrey McQueen
12 February 2009
February 12 is the bicentenary of the births of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. Their personal convictions towards slavery were pretty much the same.… Go to Article